Vintage Cardigans and Alien Abductions
by Vanessa S. Quest
Summary: Reid finds himself cornered by an unstable suspect and quickly realizes how similar this is to his own childhood, sadly.


V is for Vintage

Reid looked up at the ceiling, it was so bizarre. This experience was strangely nostalgic but like most of his nostalgia, it was never good.

His eyes traced to the corner where he saw a man pointing a knife at his vintage cardigan. He almost wanted to disrupt the man, he loved that sweater, he didn't want it to get shredded, but he also loved his torso and wished the same for it. He loved his torso more, actually. He bid a sad adieu to the ivory cream sweater he'd bought when he lived on campus at MIT for one PhD. It had been much colder there than, say, CalTech.

There was a dull ache at the base of his neck, he was glad that was the worst of it, then again he wasn't one-hundred percent sure that was the case. He hadn't dared attempt to move. The man had been rambling angrily for the past two hours.

He wasn't entirely sure how this could have unfolded into a cluster-fuck quite this proficiently, but he was sure he'd have a word with a member of the associated press after this was all ironed out.

CM

It was a straight-forward crime scene, the unsub abducted victims from a location, brought them to a secondary location, killed them- brutally, then returned them to the location they had disappeared from. He just didn't realize the unsub would double back and use the same place twice.

They had been viewing the crime-scene, Hotch, Rossi, and himself. Discussing the likelihood that the unsub fell on the schizophrenic spectrum.

"This unsub is in the schizophrenic spectrum… I need to look more closely to determine where. Maybe schizotypal dissociative disorder…" He had said over his shoulder to Hotch and Rossi who were looking at their own sections, Rossi was looking at where the van had been which had obscured the body as it was dumped. The van hadn't belonged to the unsub, it hadn't been touched by the victim, it was merely parked there at an inopportune time. Hotch was busy scanning the street to determine if any stores had visibility with their own cameras.

From the crime scene photos they had been given before they landed, Reid could envision the body of the second victim lied out, vivisected and posed as if he had been reaching for the stars. He looked up to see what the angle would be, instead he saw the news microphone and his face had dropped. He immediately traced his eyes over the crowd, and instead of noticing the disorganized man in a red spandex jogging shirt and sweatpants he spotted the News Team 6 camera-man right in front of him.

It was an aggressive walk over to the cameraman, a flash of the badge, an demand to commandeer the footage, but the reporter was already running the sound-byte and quoting her source by name thanks to his badge flash as her informant.

He was angry, he was furious, but he knew better than to lash out and give them more of a show, so instead, he spun on his heel, and only then did he spot the man in an awkward outfit pacing, wringing his hands in genuine distress. He called over his shoulder, "Hotch, Rossi… I need you to look at something…"

Hotch turned to spot the young man, he followed his eyes upward at a man as he turned to walk away. Reid immediately took the steps to follow, Hotch hadn't been entirely sure why but nodded at Rossi. As Reid blew past the press, they pushed back in to crowd the scene, successfully cutting him off from his fellow agents.

The reporter and cameraman who had caught the blurb from Reid with their well-aimed mikes quickly caught Hotch's scrutiny as he notices they had gotten past protected lines and had recorded confidential information to distribute.

"Are the FBI pursuing a schizophrenic suspect? What can our viewers do to avoid this-"

Rossi could see the ire in Hotch's eyes as he lost sight of Reid. "For any additional statements, come right this way." Rossi mentioned, he shouldered over to the left and the cameraman and reporter pounced on him giving Hotch the break he needed to run after Reid.

He scanned the city block, this was bad. He didn't see him or an indication of which way he had went.

There was a loud clanging sound and a grunt that echoed off the taller buildings. Hotch tried to focus his hearing, the voice had been Reid's, he knew it well enough to know the tone. "REID!" He quickly started in the general direction he suspected the sound came from.

Five minutes later, he stumbled across a pool of blood and a rusted-over monkey wrench. Within ten minutes the area was locked down and the rest of his agents were en-route.

By time an hour had passed, he had tried Reid's phone for the fortieth time while Garcia attempted to pull its GPS location. Garcia was on the verge of hysterics and Hotch decided that when he finds Reid, he was going to take him to a cell phone store and have them implant a GPS unit in his person.

"Hotch, I… just can't find it! His phone's built in GPS isn't putting out enough of a signal to track it!"

"Garcia, I need you to redirect your attentions then, we know where he was taken, see if you can spot any vehicles that left within the timeframe I gave you." Hotch disconnected the phone and hit the dumpster.

That damned cameraman had blocked him and now Reid was missing.

He closed his eyes to focus on the profile. The unsub was thought to be a disturbed man in his late teens to early thirties. Lived alone, on government assistance because his level of psychopathy would disallow him to maintain the most basic social skills needed to work.

He would be a loner, he had habitually returned the bodies to their abduction sight, he likely dissociated from the crime and from the victims' humanity- a delusion. What had Reid said? Schizotypal- wasn't it? A schizotypal personality disorder could be persuaded through reason to see their own hallucination is false, whereas a schizophrenic would not be swayed… he prayed Reid was right. If he was, he'd have a shot in convincing him. He'd know the cues…

CM

Reid could hear the young man, he had to be in his early twenties. He wondered how long he had been out for, because he specifically felt like he was waking up so that meant he had to have fallen asleep at some point.

He was posing an argument, he could see it, the man was hearing all the responses to it too, he'd glance left, continue to hold his sweater hostage, look right- try to drop the sweater, swing the blade right, take up the accusatory tones and get more agitated. He felt eyes rake across him. Damn it! He was caught looking!

The man approached him still glaring at his right.

"You're awake." He smiled, he leaned in closer to look at Reid's face closely, it was unnerving- that lost look in his eyes.

Reid swallowed back hard.

"I am awake, my name is Dr. Spencer Reid. What's your name?"

The younger man smiled and pointed the knife at Reid while he conversed with the left side, Reid hoped he wouldn't converse with the right side, that would probably get him a deep gash.

"He's a doctor, he can help!" He laughed in response, "Well he might be better at identifying humans… you know! You are ALWAYS so negative!" He glared to the right.

Reid flinched as the knife slashed just above him in the air, it couldn't have been half an inch from his eye… He opened his eye to look back up at the man.

"My name's Jack." He laughed throatily, "And this is Jill, and that's Bill. They're twins and very hard to tell apart."

Reid swallowed thickly, "It's uh, nice to meet you, all of you." He locked eyes with the corners of the room then back to the disturbed man.

"I saw you, you were talking to the reporter that's on TV. You're a celebrity aren't you?" He smiled, "Like a super famous doctor… right? So you, you would know about the alien invasion… right, because you're official. They tell you that stuff."

"Jack… I… I am official, but I'm not a celebrity, not really. You know I can't just talk to you about aliens, you have me strapped down. I need you to unstrap me and then we can talk about this more. Can you do that for me Jack?"

"You're official but not famous?" He looked at the old 13-inch television in the corner of the room. His smile beamed, "You're modest. You're on the TV right now!"

Reid's face fell. "Jack, Jack we were talking—come back here, I want to talk, let's talk… ignore the TV."

That caught the young man's attention, the news footage continued to the next story in the sequence, Reid realized it must be 5 O'clock, there was still light outside but the prime-time news was already in full swing.

"Jack, tell me about the aliens." Reid swallowed, he gave his body a cursory look. The only item that looked to be taken from him had been the vintage sweater. "Two people were hurt really badly because of them, I think."

"They died, actually. I couldn't get the aliens out of them. But I sent the aliens home. I put them right back so they wouldn't know I'm on to them." He leaned close to Reid and locked eyes with him, mere inches from his face.

"Jack, why do you have a knife and that sweater?"

"I don't have a knife, this is my alien extractor. See, see the handle? I have it modified, it sucks 'em up and catches them."

Reid eyes it more carefully, there was a tube in the handle, taped to it haphazardly. He looked over his appearance. The young man was bathed, his hair was brushed, his laundry was done… the house was put in order.

There was no way he could be this disturbed, live alone, and be this put together, even if his fashion choices were questionable- either he had a caretaker or he was episodic.

He couldn't help but compare it to his own mother, once his father left it had gotten bad, the piles and piles of laundry, dirty dishes, misplaced books… he remembered on one occasion how he had cleaned the kitchen while she was 'out teaching classics in the park' and then she broke all the light bulbs and screamed and railed that someone had been in her house, that someone had stolen her things and had locked him in the closet for three days in utmost terror someone would try to sneak in and steal him too. She had at least given him food and drink, and a five minute toilet break when he'd beg… but he learned to leave piles alone. Piles, yes, fresh dishes- absolutely not. They were done and put away before she affiliated it with the piles.

When she was lucid, he could clean.

Jack's clothing had no stains though. The room had no stains, no blood that he could see. Even the knife looked wiped down.

"Jack, besides Jill and Bill… who else comes here?"

"Hmm? My house guests, I don't bring many over… they're soooo messy. They stain the place red. It's the aliens, it's how I can tell." He touched his eyebrow.

"…Jack, have… have you ever gotten hurt before?" Reid asked gently, he felt moisture on the back of his neck and had a bad feeling about what it meant to him if red equaled alien autopsy.

"You were looking up at them, in the sky. You can see them too, can't you? Bill and Jill can, that's how I know I'm not crazy. Others don't see it though, it's like they weren't programmed to."

"Jack, can you untie me? I'll talk to you about the aliens more, I will… I just, I want to be able to write it out, we can't have them listening in can we?"

"Oh you're being silly. I decontaminate this room really well after each excursion. They aren't in here, and this place is the safe place, the TV keeps their noise out."

"Jack, what happens if the TV goes out?"

"…The aliens start trying to talk to me. They're not nice… they experiment on me, poke me with needles, strap me down, take me far away…"

"And then what happens? After they do those things?"

"They return me with chips, special chips I have to eat for a month, and then… then they disappear."

"Jack, were you ever hurt before? Have you ever gotten cut?" Reid attempted, he was on a line, that very tedious line of lucid reasoning and delirium, and Reid was strapped down to a table. He could see the galley-styled apartment's layout except for the bathroom. Behind him was the bedroom and a window that faced westward, he could see the sun starting to set. He was in a living room of sorts, he couldn't say much living occurred here though, no- mostly death and dying, he suspected. Then, before his feet was the kitchen and the door out of the apartment. He suspected the bathroom was off the kitchen.

In the kitchen, the 13 inch television had his image plastered again, his sound byte filled the air. He locked eyes with Jack, the young man seemed to catch the tail-end of the conversation.

"Can you untie my hand, please Jack? So I can write about the aliens, please…"

"I'm sorry. You know I can't do that." Jack turned to face the trapped doctor, he drew the knife. "I've been hurt lots of times, I told you about my abductions. The aliens infect me with their reds from the clear needles they make me have and the bad thoughts they put in my head about how ugly this world really is. I have to finish eating their chips and then after a few weeks the red that seeped in is dead and I can see the world right again. This place always looks so foreign when I get back… they come in, they steal my things, move stuff that looks alike into 'place' and then act like I can just LIVE there… I don't know these things. They took my structures, my safety beams…"

Reid swallowed, "Jack, did… were you recently brought back?"

"Five weeks ago. If I don't take their chips and keep it looking like they left it, the lizard-lady comes back and takes me away, but after a month they're happy, they go away…" He nodded, "I cleaned up the red. I couldn't let them see all that. That I was hunting them back…" He laughed.

"They'll never know I'm taking them from the other people like me."

"Jack, I really think you should untie me now." Reid nodded, hoped he made eye-contact. "Ask Jill and Bill, see if they agree…"

"I think you already know, Spencer, that they don't." He looked at the cardigan. "You're infected… you seem normal right now… you do, but they're in you."

He held up the cardigan and flipped it over to expose a rusted-brown stain on the back collar.

"Jack, you know, you're right about how it works. If you leave a person be for six weeks, that goes away, it's worn out. I… I can wait it out, you don't have to try to rush this on my behalf. Really, I mean it, I'm fine with just…"

"Stop talking!" The man screamed, Reid flinched. "The TV makes their noise go away. Jill is going to watch over you. I'll be back."

Reid's heart sank.

"Where are you going Jack?"

"…I have to get my equipment ready."

"I told you, you don't have to! All you have to do is wait the time, if you let me go I can even get you help to get rid of these aliens. I can, I really, really can, Jack."

There was a breeze as the knife pressed down to his side and then a wail of pain, Reid swallowed air in gasps. In pure horror, he saw the knife stick through his left hand. He did his best to remain perfectly still, but he felt a strange hopefulness at it. There wasn't any blood beading through.

"Jack, look at me, you've been hurt before. This is hurt. This is pain. You have to stop this now. Just untie me, untie me and give me a phone if you have one and I'll make your pain stop too. I won't let any more aliens abduct you, I'll get you fixed… you won't have to have these bad dreams. You don't have to fight with Jill and Bill about when they'll come next… I swear, just untie me…"

"You know I can't do that."

"Jill and Bill, how long have you known them, Jack?"

The younger man leaned down closer to his ear. "Don't."

"…How long, Jack? Have they EVER aged? Do they always look the same? Jack do people do that? Stay the same for years? You've known them longer than years, though, haven't you? You've always known them. They've always been there, haven't they? But they never change. They stay the same while you don't. They aren't really there, Jack. You have schizotypal disorder, you're having a hallucination. That's why they come to get you, Jack. You become a danger to yourself and they make you get stabilized then they let you go home. Those aren't aliens, those are your doctors. They're trying to help you…"

There was a moment that the young man seemed transfixed. He looked at Reid's left hand, the pristine white unmarred by the red he'd so often see unleashed after inflicting such a blow.

"…You… you're not one of them."

"I'm not, Jack, I'm really, really not… now please… please untie me…" He looked out the window at the sea of red and blue as they flashed he looked back to Jack. "I'm telling you I will get you the help you need to make this nightmare stop for you."

He circled the table once, he stopped at the beginning of the table, cutting off Reid's view of the outside. It was getting dark now, he hated the dark. He closed his eyes, he wasn't back in the closet- his mother wasn't anywhere near here. He couldn't let himself get distracted by the unbridled fear of what she might do herself without him keeping an eye on her.

Jack pushed his head upward, Reid let out a pained wince, "The infection isn't there. It's higher."

Reid's eyes went wide. "No… no, please don't Jack, Jack please- please! Jack- that knife, it isn't getting rid of the red- it's MAKING the red, do you understand? That knife will make me bleed if you pull it out, you will make me bleed and that isn't aliens… it's just BLOOD."

"You're trying to trick me and I'm just trying to help you."

The knife came out of his hand with a hard tug. He gulped back a howl of anguish, his eyes rolled toward the wound, somehow the thin blade missed any arteries, but judging by the type of pain- it might have hit bone instead. He tried to wiggle his fingers and found that it hurt extremely bad to move his ring finger.

Jack shoved Reid's head to the left, turning it to see the blood on the underside. He felt something cold run along the back of his neck, it didn't hold much pressure, but he knew it didn't need to. The cut was still made.

The younger man looked at the fluid in fascination. Reid closed his eyes, he had to try again before he cut him severely.

"Jack, listen to me. This is not acceptable behavior. What you're doing is wrong. You are hurting me, do you understand Jack? You're HURTING me. If you're trying to save me you aren't doing it right. So you have to stop this NOW. Jack, look me in the eyes. LOOK AT ME. Put the knife DOWN. Put it down, if you don't start listening I'll make sure the lizard lady stays with you. All the time. She won't EVER let you listen to the TV, you'll have to deal with the NOISE, Jack, put the knife down, NOW."

There was a sound at the door, Reid had to say it was welcome, Jack looked at him in the eyes, lost brown orbs so much like his mother's were searching his for the truth to his words.

"If you cut me again, Jack, I'll make her stay with you forever. She'll be just as much a part of your life as Bill and Jill except she'll get older. She'll grow more wrinkles, and more reptilian each year."

Jack licked his lips, "But you're one of them…"

"No I'm not, look at my hand. Look at my hand, Jack, I'm not an alien. I'm a person. You don't want to hurt PEOPLE do you Jack? Do you?"

"…But I did hurt people. They'll make me remember bad times… if I cut you though, they won't… they'll make me remember the aliens…"

"JACK PUT THE KNIFE DOWN!" Reid screamed, he winced as the blade sliced into his left arm, this time it pulled up quite a bit more red. Reid bit out a nearly silent, "Fuck…"

The door came down hard almost instantaneously to his scream, Jack dropped the knife as bright mag-lights drew lines throughout the living space. The disturbed man walked backwards, toward the wall, he silently began to cry as the lights landed on his chest.

"No, no, no, no, no... I don't want to go again… I just got BACK…" Morgan and JJ moved ahead to corner the unsub, he looked at the knife still in his hand.

"Reid! REID! Look at me!" Hotch was at Reid's side, the first bit of fabric he could grab was used to instantly crush into the wound, Reid lamented the loss of his vintage cardigan as the cream color became more and more diluted by red.

"…People bleed red…?" the young man asked to the air, Reid's head flopped toward the young man in the corner.

"He's going to-!" Reid tried to roll off the table, his hands still bound him to it. Before he could stand or try to stop it, the man dug the knife into his stomach, a bead of fat, angry red formed below it. He drew it out and did it again, and again, he hit a frenzied pitch until Morgan took a shoulder shot. Four stabs to the stomach and one bullet to the fleshy part of his shoulder, Jack drooped into the wall.

Hotch was busy cutting Reid's hands free while desperately stemming off the blood flow from his bleeding wrist.

"Spencer, talk to me… what happened here?"

The gentility in his lover's voice made Reid lock eyes with Hotch.

"…Jack…"

"Jack's just fine, he's over two hundred miles away…"

"…No… Jack… he's… he's…"

"Spencer, hold on. I'm going to need you to chew out those reporters, they illegally pertained that information, you have to be okay…"

"I was right… schizotypal… Aaron, I'm… really ti… tired…" His vision swam as he took in the spinning room, "…he got an artery… had to have… Ruined my sweater…"

"Spencer, keep awake a little longer. They're sending up the EMTs now."

"He stabbed …my left hand… and cut… the back of… my neck…"

"They're going to get you back to tip-top shape in no time, so just keep talking to me…"

"He cleaned… the blood… someone else… comes here… accomplice…?"

"His mother comes to check up on him every two weeks, and if he's off his meds, she calls the hospital… she might have covered up the evidence, but for what purposes I can't say."

"…Cleaned blood… when out of… dissociative break Jack… turn TV off… Hotch… now." He tried to explain the relevance, but he knew his diminishing energy levels just wouldn't let him.

Hotch's eyes, riddled with concern and what Reid was asking of him just applied more crushing pressure onto the wound. "Spencer, he's not…" He licked his lips.

"…Unsub name Jack…" Reid finally forced outward, "TV… triggers de…" he swallowed thickly, his tongue felt heavy in his mouth. "…delu…"

"JJ turn off the TV." Hotch called over his shoulder. Morgan was subduing the unsub, though that did take little effort. The problem was he couldn't clear him of the knife without making him bleed to death.

JJ rushed through the room and did so, she froze at what she saw behind the device. There were cases of 2-liter bottles filled with blood and soapy mixtures of foam and blood, probably the cleaners he'd use and then somehow sop up to make the room not visibly look like the hell on earth it had to be.

Reid's right hand fell onto Hotch's left as he adjusted the tourniquet. His fingers curled slightly around the older agent's hand to indicate his own presence. The room was getting too dark and all his mind could really hear were the howls of his mother as she insisted no one would take her baby from her while he was locked in that black room.

Then he heard silence. It was the most horrifying of sounds after hours and hours of his mother's screams and calls.

"Reid! Reid, wake up!"

He couldn't feel it, but a right hand pressed each cheek as if to coax him to open his eyes, he didn't even feel the slight sting of a slap as desperation gave way.

"REID! Damn it Spencer, wake up!"

CM

"Spencer…" He heard from far away, he started to blink, his tongue still felt heavy, his whole body felt like he had gone to the gym with Morgan the morning before- and had worked out until now, whenever now might be.

He blinked back a few times, he had to adjust to the brighter white colors of midday in a hospital. Reid looked left to right to scan the room, he was happy it was well lit, but he felt hung over and he didn't even do anything to earn that. It really seemed unfair.

"Hey. Come on, you have to wake all the way up. No going back to sleep just yet." That playful tone belied the worry underneath it, and Reid found himself blinking to focus on Hotch as he stood near him.

"Hotch…?" He tried to clear his throat, what had he done? Drank a gallon of sand? The upright agent handed him a glass of water. Reid took a sip. "…Did the unsub survive?"

"No. He lost too much blood, he didn't make it."

He let out a sigh, "…I thought I got through to him… why did I think something so dumb? I never got through to mom and she had maternal instincts… so how could I say some stranger would… and…" He shook his head, signal that he had had spoken enough.

"That isn't your fault. You tried to help him, as disturbed as he was you were trying to get through to him. You're amazing, Reid…"

Reid turned his head to face the corner, "…It was too similar…"

Hotch kneaded his lower lip with his teeth, "To similar to Henkel?"

"No… to my mom… he said the same thing… the _same thing_. You can't just walk into their lives and try to fix it for them… they can't handle changes like that. You have to work with them when they're lucid otherwise… otherwise it just triggers a paranoid episode and they spiral…" He let out a shaky breath. "I'm freezing."

Hotch grabbed a thicker afghan from the bottom of the bed and pulled it up.

"…I don't think that will help… I'm cold on the inside, Aaron… why the hell are you risking this? If I ever- EVER start to… you have to get me away from Jack. No one should have to see that growing up. It's…" he swallowed. "I love my mom, I do… but…" He closed his eyes tightly, there were too many thoughts to articulate and his tongue was too heavy to do it.

"Spencer, I love you, and that is for better and for worse. I will never walk out on you like that. I'm not your dad, and Jack isn't you… there's no guarantee you're going to become like that, and I know you're afraid you will anyway, but I'm not going to let fear take someone I truly love from me. I'm not going to let illness steal you from me either if it comes to it. You're a lot stronger than you let on, and I believe in you, even if sometimes you don't."

"I couldn't help him…" Reid lowered his head, somehow Hotch managed to catch his chin, he tilted his head to face him.

"He was highly disturbed, Spencer. He killed two people, he tried to kill you. You did the best you could in the circumstance you were in, that's all anyone can ask for. His mother, you know she came to speak with me while we were waiting to hear about your condition. He had died before he even got to the hospital, and she said that she hadn't seen him look so at peace since he was a _child_."

Reid silently took hold of Hotch's hand. "I'm going to sleep a little longer…"

"That's fine, you need to rest." A gentle smiled tugged at his lips, "I'll be here when you wake up."

Ronald Reagan once said, "We can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone."


End file.
